The Arrow of Fire / A Mystery Story for Boys

The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Arrow of Fire, by Roy J. Snell
E-text prepared by Stephen Hutcheson, Rod Crawford, Dave Morgan, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net)
A Mystery Story for Boys
By ROY J. SNELL
The Reilly & Lee Co. Chicago New York
COPYRIGHT 1930 BY THE REILLY & LEE CO. PRINTED IN THE U. S. A.
It was midnight. The waters of Lake Michigan were like glass, smooth glass, miles of it, blue-black. There was no moon. The stars burned queer bright holes in the blue-black glass. The long, low craft that glided through the water caused scarce a ripple.
At the prow of this Great Lakes’ freighter stood Johnny Thompson. He was gazing at the skyline of his own beloved city. Three years had passed since last he had caught the rumble of that great metropolis and had seen her lights gleaming out into the night. Now he was gliding slowly, surely forward—to what? His city, to be sure. But after that? Mystery? Romance? Fresh adventure? Who could say?
In his three years of wandering Johnny had known mystery, romance, and adventure aplenty. He had glided up dark mangrove-bordered streams at the heart of tropical America. He had crept into dungeons in the haunted castle of Haiti. He had felt the call of the barren tundras and smoking mountains of British Columbia and Alaska. He had faced the savage, hungry wolf pack, and had matched power and prowess with the Kadiak bear.
Ah yes, mystery, romance, adventure, had been his.
And yet, as he stood there watching the skyline of the city he had known so well as a boy, as her massive buildings bulked larger and larger before him, as he saw the spire-like structures that had reared themselves skyward in his absence, as he thought of the dark, little known streets, of the hidden cellars, the underground tunnels, of the wealth, the misery, the power, the intrigue, the crime of this, his native city, he could not but feel that after all he had wandered far in vain, that even here at his own doorstep was to be found romance, thrills, adventure such as he had not known in strange lands. Was he right? Only time could tell.